Firefighting Commander crash in Australia’s outback

A Turbo Commander “Bird Dog” under contract with the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services crashed in Australia on Saturday afternoon, November 4 and it’s being called a possible structural failure at high altitude. Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 indicated that a Gulfstream Aerospace Jetprop Commander had  departed from the Toowoomba Aerodrome at 10:54 a.m.

The twin-engine Commander was the same type that’s used as a lead plane for large airtankers on bushfires. Commanders have a bit of history of structural failure, even though more frequent inspections and modifications have attempted to address structural issues.

The Australian Associated Press reported that AGAIR, an aviation company out of Victoria, confirmed that one of its planes had crashed while engaged in fire surveillance in remote northwest Queensland and killed three of its “dearly loved” staff.

Queensland map

The crash occurred near the Eloise Copper Mine northwest of McKinlay.

“They’d observed a plane go down, and then they observed a plume of smoke,” Superintendent Tom Armitt told journalists during a briefing on Sunday. He said the plane was  completely destroyed by fire.

AGAIR has a fleet of fire bombers and the company’s chief executive Rob Boschen confirmed that the Turbo Commander was engaged in fire surveillance operations. “Authorities have confirmed three of our valued and dearly loved staff were the only occupants of the aircraft, and there were no survivors,” he said.

Queensland announcement

The Independent reported that Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk  said the incident had occurred while firefighters and support teams were working to control bushfires throughout the state. “I am terribly saddened by what has happened,” Ms. Palaszczuk said. “The crew onboard this aircraft have been doing everything they could to protect Queenslanders, and I send my heartfelt condolences to the many people who have been impacted by this shocking incident.”

The Aviation Safety Network posted a report that a Gulfstream 695A Commander owned by Agair Logistics with three persons onboard crashed southeast of Cloncurry, resulting in three fatalities. The Commander took off from Toowoomba Airport and was headed toward the Mount Isa Airport. Birddog 370 crashed about 70km southeast of Cloncurry, Queensland.

Purpose of the flight was for mapping recent bushfire activity in western Queensland. The Commander was cruising at about 28,000 feet when it started a rapid and out-of-control descent, and according to official reports the aircraft at one point had an average rate of descent of ~9,600 ft/min.

Deputy Commissioner Mike Wassing with Queensland Fire & Emergency Services said that other firefighting aircraft had been grounded as part of standard practice after an incident, but he said this was not limiting the ability to deal with the 52 fires still burning across the state. “The aviation community is in mourning,” he said. “And part of that aviation community includes our own personnel from the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, as well as the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and right down into Victoria.”

A Sydney Morning Herald report said AGAIR is based in the regional town of Stawell in western Victoria, and the company was “utterly devastated” by the incident. Company executives said they will provide full assistance and support to all authorities in the course of the investigations. The Herald has a news report online:

Sydney Morning Herald report~ A tip of the flight helmet to Max,
with our condolences to family and friends of the flight crew.

A Q400 air tanker will be based in Australia this summer

Air Tanker 141, C-FFQEQ, Q400
T-141 (C-FFQEQ) Q400AT. At Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia. Photo Credit Brendon Sutton

A De Havilland Canada Dash 8 Q400AT is on contract in Queensland, Australia during the 2020/2021 summer bushfire season. This is the first time the state has had regular access to a large air tanker, rather than borrowing from New South Wales or Victoria. Provided by Conair, Tanker 141/Bomber 141 (C-FFQE) arrived in Bundaberg in August after departing from Abbotsford British Columbia and making fuel stops at Oakland, Honolulu, Majuro (Marshall Islands), Honiara (Solomon Islands), and Brisbane where it cleared customs. There is a possibility the contract which started September 1 could be extended for an additional four years during the bushfire seasons.

Air Tanker 141, C-FFQEQ, Q400 refuel Marshall Islands
Air Tanker 141, (C-FFQEQ) Q400AT – Landing in Marshall Islands en route to Queensland – Photo Credit Brendon Sutton.

Conair, working with the Australian company Field Air, will have two other large air tankers on contract in Australia, both RJ 85s, beginning October 1 in New South Wales and early December in Victoria.

In 2017 the Conair Group secured a deal to sell six Q400 Multi-Role aircraft converted to air tankers to France’s Securite Civile (Department of Civil Defence and Emergency Preparedness), two of which have been delivered. These are new aircraft that Conair purchased from Bombardier which can be converted in a few hours to carry passengers.

Besides the six that will be going to France, Conair has two Q400s, including the one in Australia. The company is working with North American agencies to hopefully see at least two of the  Q400AT’s begin contracts next year. The aircraft were previously owned and are not the Multi-Role models.

Jeff Berry, Manager of Business Development at Conair, said the aircraft, “[A]re pure air tanker STC [supplemental type certificate], so we don’t have any of the residual plumbing, wiring, attachment points inside, or heavy duty flooring that you need for an MR, so it’s stripped down to be a pure tanker. And it gives us the maximum fuel load and the maximum retardant tank capacity. You get the full 10,000 liters [2,642 gallons]. The Q400AT is truly a ‘Green’ airtanker — it is incredibly fuel efficient burning only 58 percent of the fuel per hour while carrying 85 percent of the load of a typical type 1 airtanker.”

“It can operate off a 5,000-foot runway,” Mr. Berry said. “It gives them a lot of flexibility to utilize more of the existing tanker base infrastructure that is in place that may or may not be available for some of the large or very large air tankers.”

Air Tanker 141, C-FFQEQ, Q400
T-141 (C-FFQEQ) Q400AT – Refueling at Majuro, Marshall Islands. Photo Credit Brendon Sutton.

Queensland had an extraordinarily busy 2018/2019 bushfire season. Wildfire Today covered some of the fires that year.

map wildfires in Queensland, Australia
Satellite photo showing smoke from wildfires in Queensland, Australia November 29, 2018. NASA
Map Bundaberg, Queensland
Map showing location of Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia
Air Tanker 141, C-FFQEQ, Q400
T-141 (C-FFQEQ) Q400AT – Photo Credit Jeff Bough.

Firefighting helicopter goes down in Queensland, Australia

Helicopter Down crash Queensland Australia
Photo by 9News

A helicopter that was assisting firefighters on a bushfire in Queensland, Australia had a hard landing near Pechey north of Toowoomba. The pilot, believed to be in his 70s, was injured and flown to a hospital by another helicopter.

9News reported that the incident occurred as the pilot attempted to perform an emergency landing in strong winds.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Robert and Tom. Typos or errors, report them HERE.